451 Artwork

451life commissioned Joseph Warren to create this exclusive artwork to celebrate our launch. Inspired by Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, it was created as a single piece and then broken down into 451 mini-abstracts which Joseph signed individually. These beautiful collectable fragments were available for just £12 per pentagon.

Joseph describes the process of creating the artwork:

‘Developing and creating this artwork was a non-linear process that pulled together numerous elements and ideas. I think it’s important to keep things very fluid in the early stages, in this case that meant reading the book not just as a story but as a visual guide.

Some of my interpretations are literal, such as the bombers creating dark shadows, blocking out daylight. Other elements are used to reflect the mood of the novel rather than a particular narrative reference. The book is not set in any particular year but was written in the early fifties and I took some style cues from the commercial art of that era and gave them a new context.

Using spray paint and stencil allows me to work on a large scale relatively quickly, keeping the process ‘alive’. This medium is also ideal for introducing just the right amount of unpredictability to allow interesting things to happen visually.

An artwork that is created as a single piece and then broken down into pieces to be distributed among randomly connected people is, for me, a perfect and unconventional way of reflecting the closing chapter of this unconventional novel.’